Sabotage Derails Arizona Train; One Is Killed and 100 Are Hurt

By SETH MYDANS

Published: October 10, 1995

HYDER, Ariz., Oct. 9—
A stretch of track through a remote expanse of desert was sabotaged, causing an Amtrak train carrying 268 people to derail early today as it passed over a trestle spanning a gulch, the authorities said.

One crew member was killed and about 100 people were injured, but most injuries were not believed to be serious, officials said.

A note found near the wreck of the train, the Sunset Limited, en route to Los Angeles from Miami on track owned by the Southern Pacific Rail Corporation, claimed responsibility for Sons of Gestapo, a name that investigators said was unfamiliar to them.

People who had seen the note or were otherwise familiar with its contents characterized it as anti-Government, singling out the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and mentioning incidents that those agencies were involved in near Waco, Tex., and in Idaho, at Ruby Ridge.

But the note was also critical of some local authorities, said Federal and local officials, and investigators were not ruling out the possibility that it was intended as a distraction.

Larry McCormick, the acting agent in charge of the F.B.I. office in Phoenix, said his agency was taking over the investigation because of its authority under Federal railroad statutes and the possibility that the sabotage was "an act of terrorism."

"We will take the investigation wherever it goes," he said.

Despite the note's mention of the Federal assault on the Branch Davidian sect near Waco in 1993 and the siege of a white separatist's cabin at Ruby Ridge in 1992, Mr. McCormick declined to comment on the note's possible connection to right-wing groups.

Federal officials in Washington said that investigators could not rule out the possibility that the sabotage was carried out by a person with a grudge against Amtrak, Southern Pacific or an associated business and that employment records would be combed for possible leads.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, where the wreck occurred, said that his deputies had picked up two men near the crash and questioned them. "We do not believe they are connected to the crash," he said in an interview. "They were curious as to what was going on."

Sheriff Arpaio did not release the men's names, but said they were in their 20's and had apparently been drinking Sunday night in Phoenix, which is about 40 miles northeast, and had decided to drive into the desert. They said they were drawn to the area of the crash by the commotion, the Sheriff said.

Agent McCormick said he believed that the men had been released after being questioned by Federal authorities. "They are not part of this," he said. "They are bystanders that were in the wrong place."

Sheriff Arpaio said that the note's references to Waco and Ruby Ridge were "what leads me to believe this is a terrorist attack" and that his suspicion "leans to the domestic side."

At the time of the crash, the train was carrying 248 passengers and 20 crew members. Sheriff Arpaio said in a news conference that 20 of the injured were in critical condition. A deputy later said that that number reflected the initial evaluation of paramedics at the scene.

The Associated Press said that hospitals in Phoenix had reported treating at least 40 people and that one person, a woman, was in critical condition. Because the victims were dispersed for medical treatment, officials said a comprehensive figure on serious injuries was not available.

The person who was killed was identified as Mitchell Bates, 41, a sleeping-car attendant who had worked for the railroad since 1975.

In Washington, Amtrak executives said that the derailment was an act of sabotage that could have taken one person only 10 minutes to carry out.

The train was traveling around a slight, 2-degree curve at about 50 miles an hour when it derailed near the small trestle about 1:40 A.M., sending four cars plunging completely or partly into the 30-foot-deep ravine.

At a news conference in Washington, the president and chairman of Amtrak, Thomas M. Downs, said the derailment had been caused by the removal of bolts that hold a 36-inch-long connecting bar to two pieces of 39-foot-long rail.

The removal of the bar, called a joint, would have normally caused the train to stop well before the break because it would have interrupted an electric current flowing through that and other such joints to a series of red-green signals situated along the tracks. The signals are supposed to alert a train's engineer to rails that have come apart during a flood, a rock fall or some other natural disturbance.

Amtrak executives said that whoever had removed the joint knew enough about the system to attach a wire to each end of the rails on either side of the joint so that the electric current would continue uninterrupted and the train's engineer would continue to see green lights in the trackside signals.

"Someone obviously intended to have the train drop off the ravine without any precautions," Mr. Downs said. "They could have easily killed a large number of passengers."

Dennis F. Sullivan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Amtrak, said removing the bolts to the joint "would not have been a difficult job."

Mr. Downs said the sabotaged tracks were among the least traveled in the nation's railway system. The previous train passed over that stretch of track 18 hours earlier, he said.

Mr. Downs said the removal of the bolts and the installation of the wire required some knowledge of how the railway system works.

"I don't know if this is a disgruntled employee of ours or another railroad, or someone else," he said. "Someone did know enough about the railroad to wire this."

After flying over the crash in a helicopter late this evening and being briefed by investigators, Gov. Fife Symington said, "This was well planned. The people who did this knew very well what they were doing. It was very professional." It took rescuers more than an hour to reach the scene of the crash, in desert dotted with sagebrush and saguaro cactus. The Sherriff said that 4 of the passenger cars on the 12-car train had turned over and that 3 others were leaning off the tracks. The authorities were restricting the public's and journalists' access to the immediate crash scene, which is several miles from this town.

Much of the rescue effort involved helicopters and all-terrain vehicles because the rugged area was so remote. Sheriff Arpaio said the rescue effort included 25 helicopters from various agencies, including the Marines and the Air Force. "It's an act of God that more people weren't killed," he said.

The Associated Press reported that it took hours to evacuate all the passengers from the area.

Early in the day, the news agency interviewed several survivors, who spoke of the terror of the crash in the desert darkness.

"I heard babies screaming, and their mother was hollering each one of their names, one after the other," said Betty Addington, 60, of Dallas, who was traveling with her 80-year-old mother to visit a sister in Los Angeles.

A bartender on the train, Roberto Concepcion, said from a Phoenix hospital that a passenger had approached him after the wreck and had handed him a one-page typewritten note that he characterized as "anti-A.T.F., anti-F.B.I., anti-Government." The passenger said it was one of several copies of the note found lying around the area, adding that he had not read the note before he gave it to deputies.

The Associated Press said it was not known if the document was the same as the one the sheriff's deputies found.

Amtrak officials said that service between Miami and Los Angeles would be rerouted and that the destroyed section of track would be repaired in several days.

A Sunset Limited train was also involved in the worst accident in Amtrak's history, when an eastbound train plunged off an Alabama bridge that had been struck by a barge. That crash, on Sept. 22, 1993, killed 47 people.

Photos: Track sabotage sent an Amtrak train plunging into a ravine yesterday near Hyder, Ariz. A note signed Sons of Gestapo claimed responsibility. (Associated Press) (pg. A1); Injured passengers from the derailed train waited to be treated yesterday. F.B.I. agents investigated the crash. An anti-Government note claiming responsibility was found at the scene. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times) (pg. A16) Map of Arizona showing location of crash. (pg. A16) Diagram explaining how the track was sabotaged. (Source: Amtrak) (pg. A1)